Inspiring people to live the life God intended them to live.

Saturate Field Guide in Review

“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”

My Review:

Let me start by saying, I would consider this Field Guide to be a must read for anyone seeking to follow Jesus in everyday life and lead others to do the same. Also a must read for anyone seeking to launch missional communities or even communities that live on mission.

Over the course of the last 8 weeks, I have had the privilege of interacting with this resource and continue to challenge my views and perspectives of Jesus and living for him on a daily basis in a way that impacts others.

The Saturate Field Guide is more than a book. I love how interactive it is and that it is designed for either individual or group study. More than a study, the Saturate Field Guide is a resource that will change you in a meaningful way while challenging your perspectives on church, Jesus, and how you engage with the world around you on a day to day basis. Vanderstelt and Conneley do a great job bringing together past, present and future orientation of how Jesus changes us and how we live this out in the rhythms of our everyday lives. The vision that drives this is All God’s people, everywhere, filling everyday life with God’s presence.

This resource provides a helpful framework that lives beyond the pages itself and if taken to heart and acted upon can change the way you view and engage with the world around you. The questions that are used on a daily basis throughout this Field Guide will challenge your perspective and lead you toward putting into action what you are learning. Regardless of where you are in your journey of finding and following God the questions and activities contained throughout this Field Guide will challenge you!

Vanderstelt and Conneley do a great job centering the focus on Jesus and His power to change us as they state, “Jesus did it better, Jesus does it better, and Jesus will make it better. You need to believe the gospel to step out and obey it.” It is from this centering perspective that we learn essential elements of our identity as a family, a servant, and a missionary. And we live out this identity in the everyday rhythms of life which are summarized in easy to remember phrases: Eat, Celebrate, Recreate, Listen, Story, & Bless.

The Field Guide follows a rhythm of journaling and learning activities on a daily basis throughout the 8 weeks that move from Day 1: Start (a brief overview of that week’s theme), Day 2: Read (a few Biblical passages to read and mark up followed by questions to answer), Day 3: Think (introspective questions and activities) , Day 4: Pray (guided prayer exercises), Day 5: Do (a few action items, case studies, and/or activities to put the week’s theme into practice), Day 6: Meet (based on preparation and experiences each week to be used in the community walking through the guide with you) and Day 7: Floating Day of Rest (day off to encourage readers to rest and celebrate God’s goodness).

This field guide is a great companion to the book Saturate which you can read a summary of here.

About the book:

Saturate Field Guide: Principles & Practices For Being Disciples of Jesus in the Everyday Stuff of Life (Saturate, February 2016)

Whether you’re just beginning a relationship with Jesus or you’ve been a follower of Jesus for a long while, many of us have a hard time translating the truths we believe in our mind, to the reality of our everyday life.

Given our tendency to wander away from God, we need both encouragement and tools to keep the gospel at the center of our action in the everyday stuff of our lives.

This 8-week guide offers an all-of-life approach to being disciples who make disciples of Jesus. The questions, activities, prayers, and exercises will prompt you to do exactly that—put your thoughts and theology into hands-on practice. Designed for both group and individual use, each week will build on the next, aligning your heart with the will of God, examining your core identity beliefs, and launching you into mission.

When God’s people commit together to sow gospel seeds in the everyday rhythms of life, a ripple effect moves through our lives, out toward the whole earth, saturating it with the good news of Jesus.

Ben Connelly started and now co-pastors The City Church, part of the Acts 29 network and Soma Family of Churches. He is also the co-author of A Field Guide for Everyday Mission (Moody Publishers). With degrees from Baylor University and Dallas Theological Seminary, Connelly taught public speaking at TCU for six years. He now leads church planting for the Soma Family in North America, writes for various publications, trains folks across the country and blogs in spurts.

Jeff Vanderstelt is the visionary leader of the Soma Family of Churches and the lead teaching pastor of Doxa Church in Bellevue, Washington. He also travels around the U.S. and the world equipping the church in the gospel and missional living. Vanderstelt is the author of Saturate: Being Disciples of Jesus in the Everyday Stuff of Life.

NOTE: I received this Field Guide complimentary from the publisher for a fair and unbiased review.

Check out this video to understand more about Saturate and the vision behind it: